Why The Met Museum's "Punk" Gala Was So Wrong

Because it was one of those star-filledVogue events where incredibly rich and famous people sported unbelievably pricey versions of punk attire to go with their dyed and processed hair, facial surgery, lipo, and mountains of credit cards.

In other words, it was the antithesis of everything punk represented, watering down the rage of the legendary rebels into something the pampered diva crowd could throw on for a smiley photo op, turning it into just the kind of commodified and depoliticized trendy crap the punks would have hurled at.

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I took a look at the merchandise the met is selling for this exhibit, pathetic. I'm going to see the exhibit but judging by the photos I don't like how they did it. I think the bathroom replica of cbgbs is silly and trying to hard to be cool.

The fabulous outfits, big hair, professional makeup, and crafted sets were all that punk was against! This might as well have been a Yes, Fleetwood Mac, or Rolling Stones concert in 1977. Any pair of shoes on the red carpet at this event cost more than all the clothes worn by everyone in an American dive rock club at that time. They were giving beautiful vintage clothing AWAY back then, but most people were making their own duds. No money to be made in that though, huh, you fucking greedy slime?

Asshole marketing people and your fucking brain dead celebrity puppets, you can have your laugh and pick up your checks. But none of you are a pimple on the ass of the true punk rockers that made some real DIY art back in the day. This is not art. It is the same fucking trifling commerce that punk was a reaction to. CBGB's shitty bathroom will live on in historic memory long after you pretty cockroaches are forgotten even as a trivia question.

Michael -- the show, like any other show put on by a museum, is an exhibition of the aesthetics and fashion sense of a particular movement. I'm not Christian or pious, I can still attend a Caravaggio exhibit. Dig?

So funny with DEFINITIVE STATEMENTS.."PUNK WAS THIS, NOT THIS"..I ALWAYS BRUSHED MY TEETH, BTW100 people who WERE THERE, at the BIRTH, and THERE through ALL THE YEARS, would have 100 different opinions of PUNK..So, it's so silly to argue. Who cares who wants to do whatever and call it whatever?..Those of us who lived it, had a great experience, and great memories....I was telling Bob Gruen last night..."When they make cop movies, don't you think cops KNOW which is "REAL", & "RIGHTEOUS?"..Well, when they make PUNK MOVIES, have PUNK EXHIBITS, the PEOPLE THAT LIVED IT, that were part of it's fiber..We know whassup!

the show is a fund raiser and is about punk's impact on fashion/clothes, it's not about music or lifestyle, nor does it claim to be..We luv Michael Musto, but we also love the exhibit and their inclusion o the "Transgendered Birth of Punk Rock" via Jayne/Wayne County And The Elctric Chairs!... the show is brilliant, so FUCK OFF!

the exhibition is not about the spirit of punk, i do not think the met museum would ever know how to take that on. it was about the aesthetics of punk in inspiring high fashion, which never purports to be anything other than a schmorgasbord of visual inspiration from all walks of life, preferably those more "underground." couture stole punk's aesthetic, but it never touched its spirit, and the only reason they are calling this "punk" is to credit the origins of the aesthetic being celebrated in the exhibition. i can guarantee they want nothing to do with the actual ideas behind punk, and if those ideas are being invoked in the exhibition, it's only to provide some continuity between the subject of the exhibition and its origins, not to educate anyone on the actual ideas themselves, which i do not think the museum has any interest in.

It's hard to imagine how these tools who have had everything handed to them would manage being an actual punk for a damn day. When I was young and growing up in NJ and NYC we were all scared shitless, the punks, the skinheads, etc. We got shit on in school by everyone. Hanging out in the bowery you wondered if some crazy puerto rican was going to knife you or your friends because you looked different. even up until the 90's idiot thugs, jocks, police, and run of the mill people loved to make off the wall assumptions that all punks and skinheads were drug addicts, homosexuals, racists, devil worshippers. Just any fucking label the media or society could throw on them. But those uncertain times were some of the greatest times. Come to think of it the people at these Galas couldn't handle a single fucking night at churchills in the present day!

Didnt you just describe Hip Hop for last 20 years? it's lonely at the top and the only look a Gala can go for is a Gala look, which is boring. I'm not mad at celebrating the aesthetic of punk or hip hop and merging it with money. If lowbrow gets expensive does it change what you see?

It's hard to imagine how much people HATED punk when it was around for real. I remember being thrown out of a West Village record shop when I asked if they had the new Clash record..."We don't carry that shit now get the fuck out of my store"!

Galas are not punk. Movie stars are not punk.
The Met is not punk. Punk was wearing dirty torn up clothes from a scrap
store and not brushing your teeth, and it was fantastic. It was a
rejection of all of this. It's disgusting that it is now a fashion which
you can spend thousands of dollars on while trying to look sexy and
pretty. Punk was the antithesis of sexy and pretty. GAG.

“So-called fashion experts keep asking “Would real punks want to be associated with the couture clothing at The MET Punk: Chaos to Couture exhibition?” - clearly they have no fucking idea how expensive it was to shop at SEX and Seditionaries in the 1970’s! What Vivienne Westwood was creating in the 1970’s was a diluted form of couture clothing. Regardless of the myth peddled by the media, Vivienne Westwood & Malcolm McLaren were NOT creating cheap clothing for working class people. If Seditionaries existed today it would be no different, pricewise, than shopping in PRADA. That’s why so many people stole the clothes - they didn’t have a hope in hell of being able to afford them. The SEX PISTOLS were wearing very expensive clothing - they were not wearing cheap tat. It was 1970’s PUNK COUTURE.”

But punk is a viable part of fashion history and that's what the eent is about. Most of the participants didn't get it right because they weren't around or were too young when punk was popular, only Madonna and Miley served it correctly.